The blast mitigating boot relates generally to reduction and prevention of injuries inflicted upon persons, such as ground personnel, from improvised explosive device, or “IED,” and anti-personnel mine blast events, and more specifically to the reduction of tibia, fibula, foot, and ankle injuries. A person, military or civilian, can readily wear the invention as it fits within typical boot designs for military or heavy industry applications. A person with little or no comprehension of English can also utilize the invention.
From before the Revolutionary War, the military developed mines and used explosives. Mines began as containers of gunpowder concealed upon a battlefield and triggered by release of various mechanical actuators like trip wires. Military explosives started as full gunpowder containers triggered with fuses or rifle rounds. From those beginnings in this country mines and military explosives have evolved, proliferated, and developed in other countries. Present day mines serve two purposes: anti-tank and anti-personnel, abbreviated as AT mines and AP mines respectively. AT mines may include warheads so that the AT mine can disable an armored vehicle. AP mines generally have less explosive than AT mines. AP mines generally remain small in size, readily carried, quickly concealed, and designed to maim the limbs of a soldier. Such limbs include the leg with its femur bone in the upper leg and the fibula and tibia bones in the lower leg. AP mines come in various shapes and sizes ranging from toe-poppers up to leg severing devices.
In the last decade, military action in Iraq and Afghanistan has seen the rise of improvised explosive devices, or IED. These devices generally have a home made construction of explosives and placement in atypical locations such as in walls three feet above the ground, in peasant carts, on persons, in cargo, and the like. IED have posed an asymmetric threat to US and allied forces and civilians in the Iraqi and Afghani theatres of operations.
To mitigate the IED threat, military forces have increased their force protection efforts. These efforts have placed more personal armor upon ground personnel, or soldiers, even for routine tasks, such as mail delivery, than in prior military conflicts. The armor includes various vests such as flak vest and bulletproof vest, leggings, shin guards, and chest plates to name a view. Widening of deployment for the Explosive Ordnance Disposal, or EOD, blast suit has also occurred to additional personnel. The efforts have also adjusted tactics and procedures for movement of combat and non-combat soldiers across terrain, in rural areas, and in urban areas. However, the enemy has recognized this and adapted the IED to more potent models and placement beneath soldiers' feet. The US has also responded with greater usage of EOD blast suits, wider usage of steel toe boots and steel shank boots among other things. Usage of steel in boots though remains limited by magnetically activated mines and the needs of soldiers to run and to bend while wearing the boots. A full metal boot sole has not yet seen wide deployment in the military.
Though this application mentions military and soldier, the Applicant utilizes those terms in a broad sense to represent all military services, their personnel, and to include select heavy civilian applications such as mining and quarrying that involve blasting.